“providing national security costs money. And you get what you pay for.”
No. $500B should buy us something, shouldn’t it? What does it get us? What should it get us?
“What do you think the spending limit should be on providing you and the other 315 million people in the U.S.safety and security?”
What do you think the spending limit should be? I think that $500B should be more than enough to do what the Constitution says the military should do. How much more than that is enough? You have no idea. You just want more, don’t you?
“People that are interested...actually DO know where it all goes.”
No they don’t. Rather, they won’t even admit to what they do know.
I’m a vet. I have seen it first hand. You can’t wave the flag and pretend that your bureaucracy is protecting America and then waste what the DoD wastes.
The DoD, as a bloated organization, believes in it’s own budget before it believes in America. Just like every other bureaucracy.
“What does it get us”
Cost of a brand new M1A2 Abrahams tank - $6.2 million. The cost of taking an m1A1 and converting it to the latest specs is about half that price.
Cost of an F/A18 Super Hornet - $29 million
Cost of an F-22 Raptor - $361 million
Cost of an USMC LAV 25 - $900 thousand
Cost of laser guided bombs dropped from USAF and USN/USMC aircraft - $26K per bomb
It gets us a lot. The above is just an example that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the material costs that go into running a modern military capable of defending the country and defeating any and all outside threats.
“What do you think the spending limit should be? I think that $500B should be more than enough to do what the Constitution says the military should do.”
Way to completely duck out of giving an answer. You don’t know because you don’t have any clue what it takes to run the military...you just think we spend too much.
We’re only 4% of the U.S. GDP in any given year including money for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile spending on unfunded liabilities...also known as welfare is 16% and climbing.
I wish you were as pissed off about that as you are the virtual drop in the bucket we spend on national defense.
“You just want more, don’t you?”
I want us to have enough to get us back to the point where we can fight and win two separate conflicts at once. The strategy of the U.S. until 2010 when Obama slashed our budget to the point that the service chiefs had to admit we couldn’t support a two war strategy anymore.
I want us to have enough forces that we don’t continually send the same soldiers on rotation after rotation to the point it wrecks their family or because they’ve had no chance to recover from their last deployment before going on their next one...they take their own life.
I want DoD to have enough money so that we don’t have veterans setting themselves on fire outside the VA because they are so despondent over lack of care for their injuries they feel they have no other course of action left.
I want enough for the DoD that we stop being the laughing stock of countries like Iran, China and Russia.
No one fears us anymore.
That needs to change.
“I’m a vet. I have seen it first hand.”
I’m a SFC currently serving. When were you in?
“You can’t wave the flag and pretend that your bureaucracy is protecting America and then waste what the DoD wastes.”
If you really are a vet that had more than a minute in the military...you wouldn’t be talking like this.
“The DoD, as a bloated organization, believes in it’s own budget before it believes in America. Just like every other bureaucracy.’”
100% bullshit. DoD isn’t perfect. No organization this big ever is whether it’s a government agency or a private corporation. But you’re way off the mark in these broad sweeping general condemnations of the entire DoD that you are making.